Homemade Flip Clock Case
A while ago I saw a bare flip clock mechanism on sale on eBay for 10€. I decided to buy it and attempt to make a new case for it.
The mechanism arrived in excellent condition:
I asked the seller why he only sold the mechanism to which he replied that he used it for an art project. He would not go into more detail.
After a bit of research I found out it used to belong to a Braun Phase 2 alarm clock:
I took some measurements of the mechanism, transferred it into Fusion 360 and began to think of a suitable design.
Although I'm very interested in it, my knowledge and skills in the field of industrial design are severely limited.
I looked to other flip clocks and products of the 70s and 80s for inspiration and finally landed on a simple oval tube design:
I 3D printed and assembled a prototype:
A few details had to be adjusted, but overall I was already happy with the prototype.
Now I could also begin cutting a pane of glass from a broken picture frame into the right shape to be used for the front window.
I broke the large pane into a smaller rectangular piece by first scratching it with a glass cutter.
To round off the corners I took a pair of scissors and slowly chipped off small pieces of the glass underwater in a sink.
This worked surprisingly well, since the glass is much less brittle underwater. For anyone interested in the physics of it, check out the Wikipedia article on the "Rehbinder effect".
After improving the model a little, I printed the black parts with PLA plastic, sanded, primed and painted them with black spray paint.
For the case I used my beloved wood filament.
Wood filament is plastic mixed with sawdust, which gives it a lot of the qualities of real wood, like the look and feel. It also smells very pleasant while printing - a bit like a wood shop mixed with cookies.
It can also be stained with varnish, which I used to darken the wood and to give it more of a wood-like texture, though I'm still working on making the wood grain look even more convincing.
Here is the finished alarm clock:
In the last picture you can see the size difference, compared to a Caslon 101.
The clock works very well. The backlight, the alarm, the dials, everything works flawlessly.
The alarm is very effective at waking you up with a loud and harsh buzzing sound, though I definitely prefer the more gentle approach of a radio alarm.
Fortunately it can be disabled by pressing the button at the top.
Unfortunately the motor a little too noisy for me to use the clock on my bedside table.
It's a Toshiba sealed can motor, the kind that's notorious for being unreliable, noisy and difficult to service.
I found some very helpful articles from Johan de Jong on this forum, which lead me to attempt fixing the motor.
Opening it was difficult, as his "tapping on the rim of the case" trick did unfortunately not work for me. So I opted for a more "brute force" approach, which did work, resulting only in minor cosmetic damages.
I cleaned the motor thoroughly, lubricated it with high-quality oil and reassembled the whole thing. However, the noise was only slightly reduced and the clock is still too loud for me to leave it running.
I'm not sure what causes the motor to be so noisy. My best guess is that the bushing of the rotor has developed too much play. Rebushing the motor, like in this post, might help. Perhaps I'll give it a try someday.
I hope you found this post entertaining. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to reply. I would appreciate it ∶)
The mechanism arrived in excellent condition:
I asked the seller why he only sold the mechanism to which he replied that he used it for an art project. He would not go into more detail.
After a bit of research I found out it used to belong to a Braun Phase 2 alarm clock:
I took some measurements of the mechanism, transferred it into Fusion 360 and began to think of a suitable design.
Although I'm very interested in it, my knowledge and skills in the field of industrial design are severely limited.
I looked to other flip clocks and products of the 70s and 80s for inspiration and finally landed on a simple oval tube design:
I 3D printed and assembled a prototype:
A few details had to be adjusted, but overall I was already happy with the prototype.
Now I could also begin cutting a pane of glass from a broken picture frame into the right shape to be used for the front window.
I broke the large pane into a smaller rectangular piece by first scratching it with a glass cutter.
To round off the corners I took a pair of scissors and slowly chipped off small pieces of the glass underwater in a sink.
This worked surprisingly well, since the glass is much less brittle underwater. For anyone interested in the physics of it, check out the Wikipedia article on the "Rehbinder effect".
After improving the model a little, I printed the black parts with PLA plastic, sanded, primed and painted them with black spray paint.
For the case I used my beloved wood filament.
Wood filament is plastic mixed with sawdust, which gives it a lot of the qualities of real wood, like the look and feel. It also smells very pleasant while printing - a bit like a wood shop mixed with cookies.
It can also be stained with varnish, which I used to darken the wood and to give it more of a wood-like texture, though I'm still working on making the wood grain look even more convincing.
Here is the finished alarm clock:
In the last picture you can see the size difference, compared to a Caslon 101.
The clock works very well. The backlight, the alarm, the dials, everything works flawlessly.
The alarm is very effective at waking you up with a loud and harsh buzzing sound, though I definitely prefer the more gentle approach of a radio alarm.
Fortunately it can be disabled by pressing the button at the top.
Unfortunately the motor a little too noisy for me to use the clock on my bedside table.
It's a Toshiba sealed can motor, the kind that's notorious for being unreliable, noisy and difficult to service.
I found some very helpful articles from Johan de Jong on this forum, which lead me to attempt fixing the motor.
Opening it was difficult, as his "tapping on the rim of the case" trick did unfortunately not work for me. So I opted for a more "brute force" approach, which did work, resulting only in minor cosmetic damages.
I cleaned the motor thoroughly, lubricated it with high-quality oil and reassembled the whole thing. However, the noise was only slightly reduced and the clock is still too loud for me to leave it running.
I'm not sure what causes the motor to be so noisy. My best guess is that the bushing of the rotor has developed too much play. Rebushing the motor, like in this post, might help. Perhaps I'll give it a try someday.
I hope you found this post entertaining. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to reply. I would appreciate it ∶)
although the "tapping the rim" method did not work for you. Well, you got it open anyway. All these sealed can motors (Toshiba, Sankyo, Telechron, Tamura/Omron) are hard to service.
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